BBC:
To improve the quality of the Nestlé company's ice cream,
its food scientists teamed up with avalanche experts at the
Institute for Snow and
Avalanche Research in Switzerland to study ice crystal
formation. Because the temperature does not remain constant in
home freezers, ice cream continuously melts and then refreezes,
which causes ice crystals to form, merge, and grow. The
crystals affect the ice cream's structure and, hence, its
taste. As discussed in
a
paper published in the journal
Soft Matter, x-ray tomography was used to create
time-lapse studies of the evolution of ice cream's
microstructure. According to the researchers, their study of
the life cycle of ice crystals in ice cream not only will help
make a tastier dessert but also could provide "new insights
into the coarsening mechanisms of multiphase materials and
could contribute to a better understanding of complex
materials."
